Back to FHM!

"O, you're back?" says Allan, ever gruff but loveable.

"Yep."

"Gaano katagal ang bakasyon mo this time?"

"Hindi bakasyon. I'm here for good. I think."

"Good, good. May panahon ka pa bang magsulat?"

Ah, the question I was so hoping he would ask.

The question leads me to this afternoon's proceedings, shooting the breeze with a movie starlet. And where else but in the Philippines (and never, never in Singapore, in your wildest dreams) would you be welcomed back by FHM's managing editor with open arms, as if you never left, to the same old interesting shit you did two years past?

By "same old interesting shit", I mean something unexpected to write about each month: this month's specialty is an hour-long conversation with Czarina (not a household name at the moment), a half-Australian movie-star-in-the-making who bares almost all in her first film, Makamundo. The plot seems rather contrived (if you ask me) - Czarina plays a social-climbing slum girl. The girl rattling at a hundred-words-per-minute at the moment is hardly iskwater material - her face is rather sharp, with the angles softening as your eyes travel south. I don't remember how she smells, which is strange. Girls like this always smell like something.

I don't stay for the shoot. Sayang. The people in charge of the shoot now are my age, not the old photogs of two years past who made me feel like they'd slap my hand if I touched any of the equipment. My batchmate Cocoy is assisting with the photography; Allan is nowhere in sight, having left the shoot to the tender mercies of his two assistants (neither of whom look like they're of legal drinking age). I meet Rachel, the costume supplier, who jokingly tells me she's pissed off at my name (but not the personality) - a lover's tiff with her boyfriend Mike, perhaps? I don't ask. I meet the bar's manager, Candy, who looks like we were in the same English class in college. I wouldn't have felt out of place at all if I'd stayed. But friendships and Empire: Earth in Netopia with Peejo come first.

The aforementioned Cocoy is a good friend of Peejo's. Since he's making a token appearance at the studio where he's an in-house director, I SMS him to boast a little.

M: Guess what? I'm with Cocoy, we're shooting a starlet for FHM.

P: So what?! Big deal. I'm at workstation, staring at a wall!

The article I craft from my exchange with Czarina comes out (I think) in FHM's September issue. The first of many? Depends if Allan likes what I send him this Monday. Monday?! I knew there had to be a catch to the effusive welcome.